Cornwall to Manchester is 75% cheaper if your fly via Spain rather than go directly by train:
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What’s the time penalty for the Corwall-Spain-Manchester route?
I suspect that you could save even more money by walking and swimming
intercst
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It was probably quicker going via Spain given the way our railways work 
I like trains. When I first visited Europe I bought a three month Eurail Pass, it was great! When I decided to move to Portugal in 2019 I tried to buy an Eurail Pass. It got terribly complicated (burrocratic) and expensive. I complained about the price in Berlin. The answer I got was, “Fly!” I did, I arrived in Porto but my luggage decided to visit Paris. At the Porto airport they tracked it down in minutes and asked me if I wanted to pick it up next morning or have it delivered to my hotel (no charge). My suitcase joined me at 8 AM next morning.
The Captain
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Not that unusual. Several years ago, my aunt wanted to take a river cruise. She had the choice of a cruise that started in Cincinnati, or one that started in Saint Louis. The flight to Saint Louis was quite a bit cheaper than the one to Cincinnati. The trick is, to fly to Saint Louis, you had to change planes in Cincinnati. With tongue firmly in cheek, I suggested she book a flight to St Louis, then just not board the connecting flight in Cincinnati.
Steve
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But if you check luggage, it will end up in St. Louis. This technique is called “skiplagging”, see here for more information.
I do my best to not check luggage. One of my more interesting trips was from Detroit to Phoenix. Having heard all the chatter about Southwest, I decided to give them a try. I had a connection in, St Louis, or KC, I forget which. My flight out of DTW was cancelled, and I was shuffled on to a later flight, to the same connecting city. Of course, by the time I got to the connecting city, the connecting flight to Phoenix was long gone. The pilot came on the PA to say that anyone that was to make a connection to Phoenix, stay on the plane, and get off at Albuquerque. I deplaned at Albuquerque to find a completely empty concourse. Wandering down the concourse, I eventually found an AirWest gate with someone at it, who knew nothing about what Southwest was doing. Wandering back to the Southwest area, I waited, and eventually Southwest people showed up. A plane arrived, so I got on it. Finally made it to Phoenix, some 5 hours late.
The next morning, my boss called my hotel room. She had been in a lather all night about where I was. She had flown Northwest, without incident, rented a car. She headed to the Southwest terminal to pick me up, only to be told my flight had been cancelled, and no-one knew where I might be. I interrupted her stream to say “why don’t you ask where I was?”. So Kelly said “where were you?”. In my best Bugs Bunny accent, I said “Albuquerque”.
Steve…that was 24 years ago. if I had checked any luggage, it might not have caught up with me yet.
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And only use it for one way travel. The airlines hate this and will cancel your return ticket if they find out about it. They will cancel your frequent flyer account too.
I don’t see any ethical problem with it. It is my ticket, I don’t feel any obligation to use the any part of the ticket I don’t want to.
Breech of contract? Not ethical but maybe commercial?
The Captain
Nope. With fewer passengers on the next leg(s) of the flight, the plane used less fuel, less food, less of a LOT of things NOT needed due to the missing passenger(s). If so, is AA going to penalize the passengers who missed their connecting/ongoing flights from DC due to the crash? LOL !!!
Irrelevant!
The Captain
It is definitely a breech of contract. But there are plenty of ethical reasons to breech a contract. For example, if you had a medical or personal emergency and couldn’t fly the last leg.
I personally don’t believe I am ethically obligated to get on any airplane if I don’t want to. The airline is free to enforce penalty provisions of the contract if they so choose, just as passengers are free to enforce penalty provisions of the contract with the airline is in breech.
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Not to the bean counters at HQ…
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Moving goal posts to win an argument? The story started by taking advantage of a loophole. That was beach of contract for personal gain. Not worth suing the passenger, just get rid of him.
Reminds me of a cheapskate client at my dad’s hotel. He complained that a serving of sausages was too expensive. To lower the cost he bought sausages, sat down in the dining room and requested to have the sausages cooked, which was immediately done. After enjoying his meal and his victory he asked for the check. He was incensed when the price was exactly the same as for hotel provided sausages. It was explained that that was the hotel’s price for sausages. Infuriated he said that he was moving to a decent hotel. Everyone was happy to be rid of him.
The Captain
The BBC is off its rocker. Publishing lies. There is no airfare nearly as low as the buses.
It is funny Liz Truss is coming out of retirement.
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No goal posts were moved. I was merely pointing out where there are obvious cases where it is ethical and even necessary to break contracts. You haven’t said why skiplagging is unethical, which leads me to think you can’t think of a reason why it is.
Actually, in this analogy, the skiplagger would be paying for four sausages. Then the hotel owner gets mad because they served him four, but he only ate three.
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skiplagging = New word of the day!
Ethics
moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity
I agreed that it was a breach of contract. I’m not sure I would call it unethical. I can tell you why it is a breach of contract. I can also give a bunch of instances where the breach of contract is defensible. But the case I was referring to had a simple monetary objective and therefore should be judged by its intent, not some other dozens of hypotheticals. I also think the subject is not worth any more posts on my part.
Lots of food goes back to the kitchen. In some restaurants the staff is not allowed to eat the returns, it must be trashed. The reason is to prevent the staff from creating returns on purpose. I never saw anyone get mad on account or returns. Just another hypothetical.
The Captain
Exactly! It is absurd to be mad at a customer who uses less than what they paid for. I’m glad we are 100% agreement in this instance.
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As it would block out a seat that could have possibly been sold for more than the addition leg between the route that wasn’t taken. I would also guess that there are delays due to a missing missing passenger (I often seeing staff running the terminal looking for passengers if not boarded) as well as they need to confirm that there is no checked in luggage as the flight is not allowed to take off with passenger luggage checked in if the person is not on the flight, etc. Those things probably add costs that offset what is used less when you don’t board the flight…
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That’s not how the airlines work. That seat was sold for the most money the airline thought it could get at that date and time. They all use fancy algorithms to find the fare maximizing sweet spots. That’s why these hidden city fares exist.
I mean, if the airline could have sold that seat for more money, why didn’t they? Are they running a charity? Are the shareholders upset the quarterly earnings were too high?
The airlines never delay flights for missing passengers. Never. If a flight is delayed then the other passengers may miss connections and have to be rebooked, possibly on other carriers which costs the airline money. If the delays are long enough the airline may have to provide compensation. The airline may have to pay overtime pay for crew members and ground staff. Ground crew and gate schedules become misaligned. Customer complaints increase. On time arrivals is a metric tracked by the FAA, and excessive delays can result in fines, not to mention poor customer feedback. And worse, if one flight is delayed, then the delays cascade throughout the system. So the headache of one flight delay can become 10x and then 100x.
So no, airlines do not delay flights for missing passengers. I don’t know what you think you saw, but you 100% guaranteed did not see gate agents running through the terminal looking for passengers. The gate agents are busy at the gates.
From the airlines’ perspective, if you are on not on board on time, that is your problem. They are happy to rebook you at your expense if you miss your flight. But they don’t go hunting for you at their expense. They certainly don’t provide staff to go looking for you. Not their problem.
Since 9/11, airlines are required to match passengers on board with bags on board. This is not an additional cost. It is something all airlines do every flight.
You may have a point here if the passenger wasn’t aboard but their bags were. In that case, the airline would have to remove the bags, which would have some cost. But has this ever happened? If you are smart enough to book a hidden city fare to Milwaukee, why would you be dumb enough to check your luggage through to Sheboygan?
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